Kate MacDonnell earned her teaching certification in 2006 at the 200 hour level at Boundless Yoga, a Yoga Alliance registered Yoga Teacher Training program in Washington DC. She has also completed YoKid and Street Yoga trainings.  She worked for a year in the office of the Yoga Alliance. She continues to study yoga in the Iyengar tradition and has taken workshops with Paul Grilley, Rodney Yee, Desiree Rumbaugh, and Rusty Wells. She now splits her time studying and teaching yoga, leading outreach to bring yoga to under-resourced communities as co-Director of YogaActivist.org, and working as a photographer.

She believes that the heart of yoga is the deep profound source of the teaching which is explored through the experience of being in a posture, or experiencing the breath, or withdrawing the senses, or meditating. Classes are structured with a sensible sequence allowing time to center, warm up, experience the postures and the breath, and time to slow down to ease into a deep relaxation. Alternative postures or modifications are offered to accommodate different bodies. Information and assistance with alignment and guided breath awareness are key focuses.  Her aim is to meet you exactly where you are with compassion and a challenge to help you take your experience to a subtler level. She hopes to instill an awareness in the students that yoga is not an end; it is a process. Amazingly, every time we concentrate our awareness on our selves there is something new to observe, there is something new to learn.  As Walt Witman said, "I contain multitudes." We all do. Kate's intention is to be present and support you as you unfold them for yourself.


Kate's classes


Kate's level 1-2 yoga class is an active approach to one pointed focus (dharana). This class begins with a centering breath awareness exercise. This is often done in a restorative posture and attention to the breath is encouraged throughout the class in each of the postures.  Once grounded in the space and moment of your self, you will transition to a series of postures linked by the rhythm of your breath (vinyasa).  Once warmed up, you will move on to some extended postures that enliven and cleanse the body and mind.  A class might have a concentration on a theme such as hip openers, shoulder openers, backbends, forward folds, twists, balancing postures, etc.  Classes will include an inversion appropriate to your experience. You will end with a series of cooling, calming postures to stretch and relax you before you leave the class feeling centered and more fully your self.


Yoga 1 classes also start with centering and warming up, using the 6 movements of the spine (back and forward bending, side bending, and twisting) to keep the back healthy. Once the breath has deepened and the body is warm, standing, seated, and reclined postures will be explored. Attention will be given to alignment. Some classes will include in depth study of particular poses to move from a broader awareness of the structure of the posture to a more fine tuned understanding of the body and breath in the given posture. Classes will end with some calming quieting postures to help carry over the meaning of yoga (the calming of the agitation of the mind) into your life after class.